Past events

Hardly Hard to Reach: We Are Having Our Say - was the title of a major consultation event which took place on 12 June 2018 at CAIA’s Hayashen Centre. Attended by over 50 people to express their views on the development and updating of Equality Objectives (EO) and Equality Delivery System (EDS), a statutory obligation designed to help CCGs commission and deliver the right services and reduce health inequalities.

The event was organised as a grass root community response to the eight NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCG) in North West London (Ealing, Harrow, Hounslow, Hammersmith...Read more

On 1st June, Suman Fernando and ROTA presented an Institutional Racism and the Mental Health Act Review conference, hosted at University of East London. The event showcased ways of counteracting institutional racism in mental health services by promoting culture-change in professional practice and safeguarding human rights of people who use mental health services or are caught up in the mental health system.

The day featured talks, workshops / panels for professionals and users / survivors of the mental health system on ways of counteracting institutional racism in mental health...Read more

More than a third of BMER workers in the UK have faced bullying, abuse and racial discrimination by employers, while BMER young people in particular are much more likely to be underemployed and to find themselves in precarious employment (such as zero hours contracts) subject to short-notice hour-reductions. These worrying facts together with the fast-rise of increasingly complex and devious employment practices have informed our objective to address the knowledge-gap BMER young people face upon entering employment and to provide them with the tools to empower themselves and their...Read more

On 26th February, we held our AGM for the financial year 2016/17 followed by "Race, Identity and Belonging" conference with over 50 people attended, despite the cold weather.

We were joined by Afua Hirsch, a writer, broadcaster, barrister and human rights development worker of Ghanaian, English and Jewish heritage. Afua spoke about Race Equality in the 21st century and her new book "Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging". Attendees had the opportunity to buy the book and get it signed by Afua.

On 17th January 2018, Race on the Agenda and London Metropolitan University presented the launch of Dr Suman Fernando's recent book - Institutional Racism in Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology: Race Matters in Mental Health .

Dr Fernando is an Honorary Professor at London Metropolitan University and formerly consultant psychiatrist in the NHS.

The event was chaired by John Gabriel, Senior Professor at London Metropolitan University, who is the author of Whitewash: Racialized Politics and the Media, as well as co-author of Race and Power: Global racism in the twenty-first...Read more

Year 2017 was ROTA’s 20th anniversary year and to celebrate we held a special Anniversary event at the House of Lords on 30th November 2017.

Race on the Agenda (ROTA) is a social policy think tank set up in 1997, devoted to issues that affect Black and minority ethnic (BME) communities in London.

Race on the Agenda (ROTA) was originally established in 1984 as Greater London Action for Racial Equality (GLARE) as a membership organisation. Our functions were to provide infrastructure support to London’s Race Equality Councils (RECs) and work closely with the Commission for...Read more

On 20th November 2017, ROTA held a one day conference to explore multi-disciplinary approaches to tackling inequality at the intersections of race and class. At the conference we heard from legal experts on the domestic and international legislative framework protecting socio-economic rights. In addition to this, speakers also included those who have successfully used collective action as a means of ensuring access to justice and enforcing socio-economic rights. This was an interactive conference bringing together academics, lawyers, campaigners and the voluntary and community sector....Read more

On 21 st April 2017 ROTA was back in Birmingham for a seminar on BAME employment in the West Midlands. With Black people three times more likely to be unemployed in Birmingham than White British people, the seminar focused on the barriers and solutions to unequal employment outcomes. Co-hosted with local equality think tank BRAP , the audience put the panelists through their paces.

Guest speakers :

Professor Monder Ram OBE, Director of Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship, University of...Read more

On 28th March 2017 ROTA held its second seminar on employment rights. This was particularly poignant as Article 50 to exit the EU was triggered the next day. This government has done little, if anything at all to instil confidence that it will protect the rights of workers i.e. labour as opposed to protecting the interests of employers, in particular the rights of BAMER and migrant workers who are often the most vulnerable. In this context the seminar focused on raising awareness amongst voluntary and community sector organisations working with BAMER and migrant communities about existing...Read more

Watch Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn deliver his race equality and multiculturalism speech. He was speaking on 18th March 2017 in Birmingham Council House, at an event jointly hosted with the Runnymede Trust.

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